what I'm up to

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Once In A Blue Moon

Dear blog friends, I am busily preparing to fly away with my Fiasco to spend time with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and parents exploring all that Nashville has to offer. It'll be my first plane ride in about 4 years (and the Fiasco's first one ever!) and the first trip we've taken for longer than a weekend since we've known each other. Needless to say, even though I've never had a burning desire to visit Tennessee, I am certainly eager to get the heck away from home and all the responsibilities therein for a few days. Plus, sunny and warmer-than-here with blues clubs and live music on every corner? You certainly won't find me complaining! Although I will miss my kitties very much:

"Can't we come, too?"

I've prepared some posts to tide you all over while I'm gone and look forward to catching up with comments and the blogs I follow when I return. But this post isn't all about how I'll off gallivanting elsewhere. I have some pretty yarn to show you, too!

BFL Fingering, colorway SasSwatch

Right about the time that I was feeling whiny about all the holes I was wearing in my Merino wool socks and wishing that Blue Moon Fiber Arts would make their Socks That Rock yarn out of a longwool breed like Bluefaced Leicester (BFL is still fairly soft but far more durable than short-stapled Merino), Tina announced that she was releasing new yarns, one of which was BFL Fingering (OH the serendipity)! Clearly, I had to have some and immediately placed an order. I have not knit with this yarn yet but I simply adore it in the skein. It is soft and sleek, and beautifully shiny in that longwool way. The Fiasco strongly disagrees that it is soft, but he is a hardcore Merino and alpaca man at heart, so he's a bit of a harsh judge of larger micron wools. Speaking of breed-specific yarns...

Targhee Worsted, colorway Single Cell Dating Pool

I was super excited to see that Tina also released worsted and chunky weight versions of 100% Targhee wool yarns. Targhee is not a breed I've covered yet in my spinner's study but here's a little blurb about it from the Blue Moon website:

"I fell in love with Targhee sheep and their crazy good wool years and
years ago when I had loads of spinning time. It is as much a joy to spin
as it is to knit. It's so lofty that you expect it to just float away
and it seriously could with the amount of elasticity it has. It might
not be ultra soft like a very fine merino, but it's still soft enough,
and it will wear so very well.... Our Targhee is both raised and milled domestically. Targhee is one of
America's youngest breeds and is named after the National Forest where
they grazed in the summer. The forest was named after the Chief of the
Bannock tribe of the Northern Paiute."

I love that Targhee is an American breed and I find her description matches what I feel, the overwhelming impression I get from petting it is sproinginess and loft. I can't wait to swatch and see what it wants to be!

About Me

I'm known as Shoelaceswitcher on most knitting-related sites and publish patterns under Shoelaceswitcher Designs. I'm a fairly obsessed knitter with a weakness
for socks, shawls, and shiny pretty yarn. Other than knitting I love
poetry, books, music, and science. I work as a marine biologist by day and I design knitwear by night.
I'm engaged to a wonderful guy (a.k.a. my Fiasco) and we have a very sweet cat, Calypso, and new kitten, Darwin.